Vacuum evaporated silver halide gel-free photoplates are needed in small quantities for health-related organic mass spectrometry. Although this detector has significant technical leverage in the bio-chemistry and bio-medical fields, where it provides unique and unprecedented performance, its low volume precludes viability as a commercial product. Since the risk of future unavailability is deemed inappropriate, we propose a program that will make available to individual mass spectrometer laboratories a practical small scale modestly priced instrument that will produce these photoplates for the user as needed. Inonomet has the knowledge to perform this task, since it originated the plate and designed its present production facility. Phase I will examine technical and cost-related feasibility issues including options for thickness control and plate handling under vacuum. Phase II will finalize a design, build a prototype, and lay the foundation for production of this equipment. Whereas the proposed instrumentation primarily addresses a specific technical need rather than a commercial opportunity, its particular coating configuration offers commercial promise beyond the immediate needs of mass spectrometry. Once placed into the domain of product availability, it has potential use in the semiconductor industry as a unique tool for high-throughput uniform coating of large silicon wafers with the high-resolution non-polymeric inorganic photoresists (similar to silver halide in terms of vacuum evaporation conditions) for printing large scale integrated circuits of the future.